The Shecovery Meets a Swift Demise

The Shecovery Meets a Swift Demise

March 13, 2012

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Credit where credit is due: David Leonhardt wrote a follow-up post on the so-called “shecovery” in which he makes a clarification about flaws in his data. As a recap, Leonhardt saw a big jump in women’s employment from December to February, leading him to wonder if we were in another version of a mancession, this time during the recovery. But Mike Konczal pointed out that the jump was mostly artificial, due in large part to the BLS reworking its data. It’s important to stay on top of these things when they crop up, given the outsized mancession meme during the height of the Great Recession. Beware those who once again start wringing their hands the second that women start to take part in job growth more substantially.

But don’t worry, that’s not likely to come anytime soon. On the heels of Leonhardt’s follow up was more news that portends job losses for women: states are planning another wave of layoffs. Soaring healthcare and pension costs, coupled with depleted stimulus funding, “means another round of cuts for many states,” the Wall Street Journal reports, including a plan by Florida to scrap 4,355 jobs. Women, who hold more government jobs than men, will keep finding themselves out of work.

Bryce CovertTwitterBryce Covert is a contributor at The Nation and a contributing op-ed writer at The New York Times.